China’s Military Capabilites Are Growing — But How Long Can They Keep It Up?

Chinese military spending, and capabilities, to the extent they can buy them, are increasing rapidly while the U.S.’s are not, Reihan points out below, in the course of explaining why we need to reexamine our trajectory. Another encouraging thought, though: China may not be able to maintain its trajectory for terribly long.

Representative Randy Forbes, whose piece (co-authored with Eldridge Colby of the Center for a New American Security) in The National Interest Reihan refers to, is an expert and eloquent advocate for defense spending and a thoughtful commentator on China. One encouraging note in his piece is his assurances that the U.S. can indeed afford and knows how to counter Chinese power in the western Pacific, something he echoed when he visited the offices of National Review not too long ago. As someone who occasionally feverishly reads a couple articles about China’s anti-ship missile capabilities — part of a system called A2/AD – and wonders how on earth are we going to protect our ships from this, I asked him about just that topic, and he had a much more optimistic answer than I expected.